NOVEL NEXT 2.22 – Astral Rain
Maple was livid. Angry, mad, upset. Most of all, she was wet.
"We were gone for like five minutes! And, ack—"
A surge of wind pressed against her, pelting her with thick raindrops. Another bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder rolled out as if actual gods were fighting and tearing apart space itself. A terrible storm Maple was stuck in, with no breast pump to show for it.
Bailey wrapped his paw around Maple's hand and pulled her toward a tavern. He shouted, but was barely audible over the downpour.
"Let's wait it out in here!"
The wind nearly took the door off its hinge, but Bailey held it tight. He yanked it shut behind them, and one of the staff frowned before going to fetch a towel. Maple stood with her arms partially out to the side, soaked to the bone, dripping all over the floor.
"This sucks. What does that even mean, 'sold it for love'. I needed it to make money! It was probably to some weirdo fetishist, and—thank you. Ugh."
Maple took a towel from the employee and dried herself as best she could. She saw Bailey had it even worse, with his fur drenched beneath his clothes. That was partially her fault, even though he had offered to go with her.
"Sorry, now we're both soaked. I should have just waited until tomorrow. But I have my money with me now, and this place looks nice. You're hungry right?"
The tavern smelled amazing actually, and neither of them had eaten yet. Bailey nodded while toweling off his head.
"It's fine, I've worked through worse. Yeah, food would be good."
So they waited, and they ate, and tried to make the best of things until the weather cleared up.
Emma was already at her job by time Maple got back to the inn, making Maple wonder if her cutie had enjoyed the rain, while also worrying she'd gotten washed away in it. An unfounded worry, as Sasha explained she'd been dancing outside in the worst of it and left after it had calmed down.
With nothing else she do while stuck in the inn, Maple passed the time by drinking, snacking, playing darts, messing with her erogel eyes, and bugging Sasha. She would have practiced magic, but her mana still felt low and she didn't quite want to risk using prana in a public setting.
Rachel was there too, off in a corner and seemingly burning through a whole pouch of something she kept rolling into cigarettes. The smoke wasn't tobacco from what Maple could tell, but she'd still avoided Rachel's area until having her fill of everything else.
Then, with one last inhale of clean air, Maple pulled up a chair.
"Everything alright...Rach?"
"Yep. Just peachy."
Rachel glanced in Maple's direction, smoke shooting out from her mouth as she spoke. Maple's face scrunched up from the smell, like a strong incense.
"You sure are smoking a lot tonight."
"Mhm."
She took a much longer drag from her cigarette, as if to agree, but did not elaborate. Maple glanced behind her, regretting not seeing if Sasha knew what was up first.
"Any, uh, reason for that?"
"Yeah."
Maple waited a good minute for another answer, and when none came, she stood up.
"Right, well, good talk—"
"Ah, sorry Maple. I'm just thinking about things. There's a weapons demonstration tomorrow, you see."
Maple sat back down and leaned in. She didn't know a ton about what Rachel did.
"Ooh, you made something? Got a lot on the line if it doesn't work properly, or something?"
"Kind of. Syber makes some money from arms deals with allies, but it's not like I'd lose my job either way. I'm more worried about it being too effective, you know?"
Maple didn't know. What did that mean? And was that something you wanted to hear from a weapon maker? Maple laughed nervously, unsure if she even wanted to know.
"Haha, uh, what'd you make?"
"It's basically just—actually, I always end up making it sound too gruesome when I describe it. But the demonstration is open to the public tomorrow if you wanted to watch. On top of the west wall."
"Um...is it gruesome?"
Rachel shook her head, and took another puff.
"The demonstration won't be. Do you like fireworks? It's kind of like that."
"Ah, uh, sure? You have fireworks here? Maybe I'll watch it. I'll see if Em wants to go. But are you sure you're okay? You should probably slow down on those."
Rachel flicked the ash into a half-full tray and shrugged.
"There's nothing psychoactive in these; it's just for the flavor."
So Rachel claimed, and so Maple lived and let live. She idled the rest of the night away, learning of a dam upstream that helped control the flow of the river, the lake which would fill up with the rain, and other frivolous things.
She'd been lying in bed, tired from socializing all day, when the door finally burst open and Emma swaggered in with wide open arms.
"Emma, you're home! Hehe, come here cutie."
Emma obliged, and swallowed Maple up on the bed. She'd changed clothes, but the rain hadn't left her feeling very clean. Emma fixed that, and after settling in, wrote on her chalkboard.
I return bearing three gifts for my lovely human.
"Ooh, three. Trying to one-up me, cutie?"
Emma held up two fingers with a cheeky smile, and Maple laughed.
"Two-upping me, then."
Emma nodded and wrote.
Close your eyes and open your mouth.
"You're not going to do something weird, are you?"
Maple joked, but did as instructed. Even if it was something 'weird', that would be just fine—something sweet was placed against her tongue. Maple opened her eyes and smacked her lips.
"Ooh, candy. It's—maple? You silly. It's good."
It tasted like real syrup, rather than an imitation. Syber liked its syrups, and Emma had chosen the flavor intentionally judging by her mischievous expression.
The second gift was something weird, especially when she heard what Emma intended to use the paints for. Maple guessed correctly that Marielle was to blame, once again, and gave a non-committal answer when it came to actually using them like that.
For the third gift, Emma hesitated and gave an explanation upfront.
Maybe not a good gift because it's for your future dairy, but I thought it would help?
"Of course, cutie. I'm happy you got me anything at all. I'm sure whatever it is will be useful."
She really was such a sweetie, so concerned, as if Maple wouldn't love absolutely anything she'd gotten her. But then she pulled the third gift out, and Maple spluttered—then laughed and shook her head. Emma tilted hers, and playfully pressed the cup against Maple's chest.
"I know what it is, silly. Thank you. It's very helpful, and actually..."
Maple thought for a moment, unsure if it'd make the gift better or worse, but ultimately decided it would be too funny to not mention and find out for sure.
"I was trying to buy one exactly like this today, but when I asked him to hold it for me and came back with my money, do you know what the guy said?"
Emma shook her head and covered her mouth with a hand.
"He said he'd already sold it to someone else. For love!"
Emma's eyes went round, and Maple laughed. Emma wrote after a few seconds of shock.
What a devious fellow. I cannot believe he would do that!
"I told Bailey it was probably some huge pervert who bought it."
Maple playfully pinned Emma beneath her, and Emma nodded rapidly with a grin. She re-formed an arm off to the side to write with.
Definitely. And it was probably a gift for an even bigger pervert!
They laughed at that, and then Emma turned the tables on Maple and began slipping her clothes off. Not to do anything lewd necessarily, they were just playing and getting ready for bed. Once Maple comfortably cuddled against her, she whispered.
"Thanks for the thoughtful gifts, cutie. I love you."
Emma cuddled tighter against Maple, and then purred against her. She sounded just like a cat, and the soft vibrations were comforting enough to drift to sleep to. Then Maple remembered something.
"I should try to check on Thera and them. We were having range issues earlier today, and it sounded like they all got hit by the rain just as hard."
Emma agreed, and Maple closed her eyes to focus on their shared mind.
"Thera? Hello?"
The thoughts bounced around their empty mind, as thoughts did, but it didn't feel like Thera had seen them. Normally there would be a subtle acknowledgement, or at least presence. She tried making the thoughts 'louder', but still it didn't feel like it was working.
Changing strategies, Maple focused on their shared mind as a whole. Rather than a whole separate mind, she realized, it may be more like a section of her mind that had been partitioned off to be used as the shared area. Did a mind even have an absolute size or shape?
She was getting distracted, but if she focused on the area hard enough—it felt like it stretched out in one direction, toward somewhere far away. Toward Thera, she had to assume, if she wasn't just imagining it. She tried moving her attention deeper down the length of it, like she was zooming in.
In a minute, she was going to try sending something again, but then—she actually started zooming. It felt like she was falling, and like her whole body was vibrating with an uncomfortable intensity. Around her, the world sped by.
"AHHH—fuck, fuck, heck—"
Every wall, tree, and obstacle made her flinch, though she passed right through it all painlessly. As if she were a ghost. The falling sensation was also unpleasant, but she managed to stop screaming.
The vibration settled into a low background hum. Was it just Emma, still purring against her, and Maple having accidentally fallen asleep? But she'd just been awake, she was certain of that, and she still felt awake.
She was outside the walls of Syber now, flying through wilderness, guided automatically along a faint string of light attached to her navel. It stretched out behind her too, toward the inn. It felt like she could venture off elsewhere if she wanted, but that would be scary.
The whole trip took less than 30 seconds, and then Maple landed inside of Thera with an oomph. Maple screamed again, and clutched an arm to her...
The scream that came out used Thera's vocal chords, and Maple clutched one of Thera's arms to Thera's chest. She was in bed, and also naked for some reason, but the difference in bodies was palpable. Thera was taller for one, and it just felt foreign.
The room was dimly lit, but Thera was on an actual bed so Maple guessed they were somewhere inside the erogel spa for the night.
"What the heck—Thera? You awake?"
Maple could feel that she was, based on the thoughts adjacent to hers. If she wasn't careful, her attention spilled outside of the shared area and into the rest of Thera's mind. Maple tried not to pry, but did sense that Thera was slightly embarrassed about something—so she did actually feel that emotion!
But the voice that answered wasn't Thera's.
"Maple? Hah. What are you doing here? You didn't die, did you?"
"What? Remi? I thought you left. No, uh, I don't think—I hope I didn't die. I was just trying to check on Thera and kinda got sucked on over?"
Thera's other hand twitched near her crotch. Remi's movements, probably, though it was a little difficult to distinguish between who was doing what. Still, that helped Maple piece together what she'd barged in on, and it was her unrestrained embarrassment that made Thera's face heat up while Thera let Remi speak. She sounded excited at least, her voice coming out half using Thera's vocal chords, and half her own ghostly manner of speaking.
"Ooh, you do look split in half. The rest of you is probably still with your body. I guess your soul bond helped you astral project. Always seemed random what abilities end up manifesting, but I guess it makes sense with the way you described yours. Anyway, I decided to stay. Your guys' rocks started rolling away, and—I wanted to stay, I realized. At least for a little bit. But you joined us at the perfect time. I always wondered what this would be like with more people."
Maple could feel Remi in Thera's body with them, but not within their mind. Before Maple could even ask about any of that, Remi slipped a couple of Thera's fingers inside of Thera.
It was very distracting, and—it did feel different than Maple's body in subtle ways. There was no erogel prana in her body, of course, but every sensation and even arousal was...different.
Maple observed it clinically, having had her fill for the day, honestly, while Thera's body was raring to go. She would likely get into the mood herself if she stuck around long enough and her mind synced up, but there was a disconnect for the time being. Maple tried not to interfere with Thera's body or mind, feeling a bit like an intruder, and used only what was needed to speak.
"Ahh, um, I should be getting back. I didn't mean to interrupt, and I'm sure Emma is worried about me. But what do you mean the rocks were rolling away?"
Thera answered this time, speaking aloud.
"Just like it sounds. They're slow, but they don't stop. Tomorrow is going to be annoying. Hi Maple. Guess it's your turn to catch me with another woman today. You can stay if you want."
Maple instinctively nodded to her, using Thera's own body and possibly looking very much insane to any out-of-the-loop voyeurs.
Remi put both of Thera's hands to work and let out an exaggerated gasp.
"Yeah, stay for a while. Your body is probably still awake, you're just split in half. You'll integrate both experiences once you return."
"What? Split in—half? Is that, uh, safe?"
The pleasure made Maple stutter. She felt Thera enjoying the sensations adjacent to her in their mind. Remi too, though only as a presence within the body. It was intimate in a way like [Telepathic Orgasms], but without only being the end. Remi shrugged Thera's shoulders.
"Safe enough. Consciousness is infinite and divisible. Just don't get eaten by anything on your way back, haha."
Maple sighed. It'd been scary enough getting there, and—three people in one body? She had to admit, it did seem interesting.
